ExpertOps: More Security with Less Time

When you work for the office of your organization’s chief information security officer (CISO), time is not your friend. In 2015, the average time from compromise to discovery of a security incident was 146 days. That figure dropped to 99 days in 2016. Even so, the pressure is still on for organizations to do more with less when it comes to strengthening their security posture.

Many enterprises choose or design a security solution to help boost their digital defenses. This course of action is ultimately harder than it sounds. Here’s why:

Limited and/or Inconsistent Resources

Under the ongoing skills gap of trained infosec talent, trained security personnel are in high demand but are oftentimes forced to focus on tactics matters. The desire to make more strategic decisions could induce them to look for greener pastures. This tendency makes it difficult for organizations to generate the necessary expertise among their digital security teams.

But limited resources are only half the problem. In-staff resources who have sufficient experience to monitor a file integrity monitoring (FIM)/security configuration management (SCM) program oftentimes find themselves dedicating their focus to other matters like new projects or an unexpected security incident.

These detours of attention cause the value of that program to dip and personnel to lose knowledge that they must work to regain after they’ve returned to the program… that is, if they don’t leave for another security firm. In that case, the company faces a long road to figuring out how the system is configured, hiring someone new, and providing them with adequate training so that they can manage the program.

Costs Add up for a Security Solution

It’s difficult enough to find the necessary talent to manage a homegrown FIM/SCM system. Unfortunately, cost isn’t an inconsequential consideration, either. Aside from the fact that information security salaries generally increase about five percent a year, organizations must spend untold amounts of money on recruiting personnel, procuring servers for a new solution, obtaining database licenses, funding consultants who can come in and set up the solution, and then pay for perpetual licenses, ongoing staff training, DBAs, and platform maintenance. Needless to say, all of those costs can add up quickly.

An Avalanche of Data

Even with an implemented solution, security professionals could find themselves overwhelmed by an avalanche of data consisting of superfluous alerts and non-actionable information. In this state of disarray, there’s no room for strategy. There’s only white noise.

Organizations need a managed service that can withstand resource turnover, not cost too much, and deliver actionable information to the right people. That’s where ExpertOps comes in.

ExpertOps functions as Tripwire Enterprise’s “Easy Button” in that it offers FIM and SCM as a service using cloud-based infrastructure. Tripwire sets it up and manages it, which makes the overall cost much less than setting up a similar service from the ground up. And with a simple subscription, customers can expect to receive alerts, reports, and tuned information sent straight to their inboxes from Tripwire, whose experts are available 24/7 to align their goals with each customer’s evolving objectives.